From bottom to top, from the humble militant of the farm, the mine or the railroad up to the messengers of the « Center », hère is the history of the communist people facing crossfire. In 1936, the Party had finally met the « masses ». In 1938, the agony of the Popular Front, Munich and Daladier crushed its spirit. Then came the war and the German-Soviet pact, the banning and the defeat, silence and clandestinity. Overwhelmed by so many blows, many gave up or decided to wait. A few felt around in the shadows and took up the strands of the defeated organization. The most determined threw themselves into action. AU were suspected or chased. After the Wehrmacht's invasion of the Soviet Union, when the National Front took shape in the fall of 1941, a frail skeleton had been preserved, a new génération was rising, which was to become that of the executed and of the underground. Based on reliable and often unpublished documents found in the archives of 30 French departments and many European deposits, this history, the subject of so many rows and quarrels, awaited for 50 years, relates as closely and honestly as possible the lives of thèse women and men.